Abstract: A switch having first, second, and third ports receives a multicast join message into the first port on a first VLAN, wherein the first and second ports are associated with the first VLAN, the second and third ports are associated with a second VLAN, and the first, second, and third ports are associated with a multicast VLAN, and wherein the multicast join message represents a first request to join a multicast group; creates an association between the multicast group and the ports associated with the multicast VLAN based on the multicast join message; transmits a network-layer routing protocol message from the second port, wherein the network-layer routing protocol message represents a second request to join the multicast group; receives a multicast packet for the multicast group into the second port; and transmits the multicast packet on the multicast VLAN based on the association.